GM broke ground yesterday on what will be the first electric motor factory in the U.S. for a major automaker. The factory is an addition to the GM Baltimore Operations Complex and will open in 2013 to produce rear-wheel-drive motors for hybrid and electric vehicles.

The new plant is proof that GM is putting its money where its mouth is on electric vehicle technology, costing $129 million from GM to build, in addition to $105 million from the U.S. Department of Energy and $10.5 million from the county and state. The factory will be partially powered by a rooftop solar array and will follow the lead of its parent complex by generating no landfill waste.

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11 Comments

MardenMay 31, 2011 at 11:09 pm

Sudons great to me BWTHDIK

lazyreaderMay 25, 2011 at 8:19 am

I’m poorly convinced global warming is a major concern. I was the one who had to dig 3 feet of snow out of my back yard. And even if we spend a trillion dollars how do we measure our success. In the last few thousand years we’ve seen temperature swings. There was a warming period during the Roman empire which boosted agricultural yields and led to the expansion of the empire. There was a cooling period which coincides with the Dark ages. There was another warming period which coincides with the Renaissance. There was a cooling period throughout the 1700′s onward to the 1850′s. The infamous year without a summer. 1250 years ago Greenland may have actually had less ice and had grass and trees. So whats the point of spending money trying to prevent a problem that in truth is something nature does all the time. Mother nature is cruel manipulative bitch and she runs the show. It’s like building sandcastles at high tide.

peteoMay 24, 2011 at 3:17 pm

Again, you are stuck in the past. You believe OIL, GAS. Coal are unlimited. Just like I’m sure you believe global warming is not real. You cant just close your eyes and believe what you want to believe. These are FACTS.

I was not saying for the government to take over clean energy. I am saying they must move investment out of limited, polluting energy sources and put it into CLEAN, UNLIMITED energy sources. This will help bring investment, and create new billionaires

lazyreaderMay 24, 2011 at 12:53 pm

Like I said, oil and gas receive subsidies, I oppose those subsidies…………without subsidies solar and wind become unmarketable currently.

Europe has always had historically higher unemployment than America. Oil is finite, technically. We can make oil from garbage or pond scum in the near future. My argument is simple, for every industry there is a billionaire famous for it. Software has it’s Bill Gates and Larry Ellison. Real Estate has it’s Donald Trump. Steel tycoons like Carnagie. Media has people like Ted Turner and Rupert Murdoch. Where are the solar and wind billionaires. The basic argument is energy independence is a myth. Food is the basic requirement of humanity, does that mean the government should run all the farms and grocery stores and restaurants. What if we we’re food independent?……….Next time there’s a flood or a severe drought or massive crop failure we’d starve. Africa produces little food crops, they mostly continue to grow cash crops which they trade for food. We know foreign aid doesn’t work. Trade works. Back to the original article, if GM wants to make motors fine, let them pay for it and try to sell them free of government handouts. They invested and make more money building and selling engines.

Peak Oil news is nothing new. They’ve been preaching that dogma for 150 years. Peak oil reminds me of peak whale oil. Sure, peak whale oil happened. It happened because another energy source took over for it. The same with peak petro-oil, the market will find that alternative. But as for petro feedstocks, we can recycle oil and chemicals and in the human timeframe, our hydrocarbon reserves are nearly inexhaustible.

PeteoMay 23, 2011 at 3:44 pm

Again, you are looking to the past. As the technology of solar, wind and hydro get better the cost per a KWH comes down (just like computer chips) Yes I do know that Oil is also use in allot of other things but that does not mean we should be subsiding it.
Allot people in 3rd world countries do not have access to ANY POWER. As the cost of Solar, Wind, Hyrdo come down, there will be more opportunities to get power to these people.
Solar, Wind, Hydro cost per a KWH is constantly improving because every year the tech keeps on improving.

The price of Oil is rising because: Oil is a FINITE POLLUTING resource. Countries that are investing in RENEWABLE energy are leaving us behind.

lazyreaderMay 23, 2011 at 2:31 pm

Some say that Wind and Solar are the energy source of the 13th century. If it were economically competitive to have them is mass, then companies would have built them like crazy, but they haven’t. Simply look at the countries that did it first. Many European countries invested huge sums of government money into solar and wind projects. But for the creation of 1 green job they sacrificed several jobs. Portugal has been one of the largest investors in solar power and their unemployment has been as high as 18 percent. European governments and businesses have backed out of these projects.

Oil is not just gasoline. It’s many things. It’s petrochemical feedstock. Plastic, fertilizers, pharmaceuticals, etc. If your gonna raise energy prices, you’re gonna kill a lot of people. Poverty is typically tied to energy affordability. If people in Thrid world countries don’t get access to otherwise clean burning natural gas, they’ll simply burn dung, garbage, paper, wood, plastics which is worse for the air quality. Just like the overreaction to pesticide fears led to bans that killed people as a result of malaria and diseases easily averted by spraying.

PeteoMay 22, 2011 at 11:47 pm

Oil Is a limited resource, period. Were as solar, wind and hyrdo are UNLIMITED

There’s no disbutiing those facts. Also oil is a very polluting energy source.
You are right about batteries, we need way more investment to get battery tech were it needs to be. Electric motors are way more efficient then gas engines.
Even when you add up all the losses from using gas to generate the electricity, transmitting it and storing it in a battery, it’s about 48% efficient, were as gas is at around 25%. (http://techpulse360.com/2009/12/23/are-electric-cars-more-energy-efficient-than-gasoline-the-answer-is-yes/)
If you use a clean renewable resources to generate the electricity, who cares, about efficiency, it’s an UNLIMITED RESOURCE!!!

This old oil thinking needs to go. It does nothing for the U.S. Only keeps us in the past on our way to global irreverence.

lazyreaderMay 18, 2011 at 4:52 pm

Were not running out of oil, what were running out of is simple crude Saudi liquid oil.

It’s all very true that gas has a higher energy density that electric batteries as they stand today. It’s also true that the government is effectively bank-rolling the industry right now.

Here’s the problem with oil…it’s drying up.

At some point we going to need to look at alternatives, and do we really want to be in a position where we start R&D on alternatives only after the oil is gone, or at $200.00 a barrel? No.

lazyreaderMay 18, 2011 at 10:17 am

The New York Times stated that the electric car has long been recognized as “ideal” because it was cleaner, quieter and much more economical than gasoline-powered cars. They said that back in 1911. The Washington Post commented that “the same unreliability of electric car batteries that flummoxed Thomas Edison persists today”. The oil and car industry can stand on it’s own two feet without subsidizing. It’s not to say they don’t; I oppose those subsidies. Without the infusions of federal cash, the electric business would begin to dry up. Simple physics, gasoline has 80 times the energy density of lithium. Lithium breaks down over time but a gallon of gas is a gallon of gas. The 100,000 dollar Tesla roadster claims a range of 200+ miles; where as a 40 mpg Ford Fiesta has a fuel range of over 700 miles.

lazyreaderMay 18, 2011 at 9:10 am

GM gets 115.5 million dollars to build motors from the taxpayer. They spend our money while the privileged few that can afford electric cars enjoys the subsidized benefit of clean happy motoring.